Chapter Text
"I'm not sure that this is such a good idea."
Kala looked up from her suitcase, surprised by the interruption. Wolfgang was looking at her intently.
"I'm not so sure it is either," she mused, "But it is bound to happen eventually, and I think enough time has gone by that it will not be too painful, although it is hard to tell for sure. But we agreed, Wolfgang, it's better to just go now and get it over with. They're my family, you've been through worse." They just looked at each other for a second, as all the pain and horror of Wolfgang's kidnapping and torture and subsequent rescue seemed to rise to the surface between them.
"Yeah," he said quietly, "We've been through worse."
And they had. But it had been months now, months since BPO was defeated. Months since Kala had left Rajan and come to Berlin. She and Rajan had both decided it would be best for her to leave for a little while, put some distance between them, and Kala had wanted to be there for Wolfgang as he recovered - really be there for him, not just in her head. It had all worked out kind of perfectly, if you didn't count shattering her marriage, breaking a man's heart and devastating her family. Plus the fact that Wolfgang had been tortured. Still, being in Berlin was wonderful. But it had been months, and real life had caught up with them.
It hadn't been Kala's idea. Not that she never wanted Wolfgang to meet her family, it's just that.... Well. She kind of never wanted Wolfgang to meet her family. She literally couldn't even picture them in the same room. She loved Wolfgang, and she knew that her family wanted only what would make her happy, but they came from different worlds. Very, very different worlds. And for her parents, going from Rajan to Wolfgang was sure to be... well, it was going to be an adjustment. But they had begged her to come home, at least for a short while, and they wanted to meet him. Kala genuinely believed that getting the meeting over with now was the best course of action, and the tickets were already bought, her family warned. It was actually happening. But she could feel Wolfgang's anxiety at the edges of her consciousness as they got their stuff packed, and so she worried.
Wolfgang had never considered himself to be a "meet the parents" type of guy. Then again, there were a lot of things he had never been before Kala. Still. On the rare occasion it had happened in the past, he'd usually made it his mission to scare the parents as much as possible. They were going to hate him anyways, so he'd always figured that he might as well have some fun with it. He might as well make it intentional. Come home with an interesting story for Felix, who would roar with laughter at his re-telling of some girl's poor father's face when Wolfgang had said he stole things for a living.
"Wolfie, you legend!" He would say, between snorts of laughter. Wolfgang would only smirk.
"Well it's true."
But this time was different. This was Kala.
Wolfgang knew how important Kala's family was to her. he could feel how much she missed them, like a dull ache in his chest that was only really comparable to how he'd felt while Felix was in the hospital. He knew how much their opinions mattered to her, no matter what she said about independence and feminism.
So he didn't want Kala's family to hate him. The thing was, he knew that they would. How could they not? He was the one that had stolen her away from Rajan, the perfect husband. The one who was keeping her currently in Berlin so far away from them. The one she was living and sleeping with out of wedlock - up until very recently, Kala had technically still been married to Rajan. That was reason enough for them to hate Wolfgang already. And that was without everything else. Every terrible fucked up thing that he'd done in his life.
"Hey, hey." Kala's hand on his face shook him from his thoughts. "Stop that," she told him softly, he face only inches from his. "I choose you. If they can't see why, that is entirely their problem. Not ours."
Wolfgang reached out and pulled her into him, burying his head in her curls. He would try, this time. For her.
Always for her.